Malloy’s joke was an apparent reference to President Barack Obama posing in a selfie — during Nelson Mandela’s memorial service in December — with Danish Prime Minister Helle Thorning-Schmidt and British PM David Cameron. Obama drew criticism over that episode.
At Tuesday’s press conference in the state Capitol, the two students — Rodriguez a junior at UConn, and Alvarez soon to begin at Manchester Community College — used laptop computers to demonstrate the state’s newly-launched online voter-registration system.
The system, developed by the office of Secretary of the State Denise Merrill and the state Department of Motor Vehicles, makes Connecticut the 15th state in the U.S. to allow residents to register to vote online.
To use the system, a resident must hold a valid Connecticut driver’s license or other DMV-issued ID. The person enters his or her information into an online form, which is then emailed to the registrar of voters in the town where he or she lives.
People can use the system to apply to register as voters — which Alvarez did at the press conference, in anticipation of his 18th birthday later this month. Or, if they’re already registered to vote, they can change their registration information; Rodriguez changed her home address at the press conference where Malloy, Lt. Gov. Nancy Wyman, Merrill and DMV Commissioner Melody A. Currey spoke.
The local town’s registrar of voters must verify all information via email before adding the new voter (or any updated information about an existing voter) into the online database of the Connecticut Voter Registration System, officials said.
The new system was created as the result of a 2012 law. Under the system, a new voter registering online adds his or her electronic signature – on file with the DMV – to the online voter registration form that he or she fills out. The signature attests that all of the information in the registration form is true and accurate.
By Jon Lender, Hartford Courant